Paducah Transit and Lower Savannah COG Receive
MSAA Intelligent Transportation System Grants

Paducah Area Transit System, based in Kentucky, and the Lower Savannah Council of Governments based in South Carolina, have been selected as recipients of grant funding from the Mobility Services for All Americans (MSAA) initiative. This funding enables both transportation providers to develop and design coordinated human service transportation systems utilizing Intelligent Transportation Systems capabilities. Responding to due to inefficiencies, limited resources, and a lack of coordination in the delivery of human services transportation in many areas, the USDOT ITS Joint Program office launched the MSAA initiative as a way to bring all communities together to provide a coordinated effort and apply technological solutions to the barriers to accessibility and mobility for the transportation disadvantaged.

The U.S. Department of Transportation issued a request for proposals (RFP) in April 2006, looking to award 15-month grants to local communities that have shown progress and the ability to implement enhanced human service transportation systems.  In late December 2006, eight communities were chosen to design and develop “deployment-ready,” scalable and replicable systems for human service transportation delivery.

The Paducah Area Transit System offers fixed-route and demand response service to an eight-county area, providing 1,600 trips a day.  Paducah Transit is the only provider in Kentucky to offer transportation service 24x7.  “We have already made incredible headway in providing responsive and extensive service by utilizing GPS and AVL software from RouteMatch Software, along with mobile data computers on each vehicle from Mentor Engineering,” said Kim Adair (pictured with Gary Kitchin), operations manager at Paducah Area Transit System.  

“This grant allows us to push further into automated coordination and service delivery, designing a system that uses intelligent voice recognition, information kiosks, smart card technology and automated disaster recovery,” added Adair.

The Lower Savannah Council of Governments, representing six counties in southwest South Carolina, submitted for the grant on behalf of the Lower Savannah regional transportation management agency (RTMA) comprising a range of agencies, county governing bodies and public transportation providers with the common goal of coordinating more effectively on a regional basis. 

"This grant gives us the technology boost we need to further our vision of developing regional and even state-wide transportation coordination, said Lyndda Bassham, director of Human Services for the Lower Savannah Council of Governments. “We’ve had our kick-off meeting with RouteMatch Software, American Medical Response, the DOT and the Lt. Governor’s office and we’re working very hard on a detailed project plan and deciding what technologies are needed for effective transportation coordination and integration.”

The grant ends in mid-2008, and there will be a resubmission process for the next phase when two or more local communities will be selected to deploy and evaluate
ITS-enhanced human service transportation models as locally planned and designed in the current phase.